Every now and then, people get crazy about something, and this spirit (or fear) suddenly begins to take over in popular culture.
This is not always a bad thing. I have been watching the Mad Men marathon a bit since it started on Wednesday, and it strikes me how acceptable it was to light up a cigarette and/or have a couple of drinks literally anywhere and everywhere you were, seemingly.
Hell, I can even remember when smoking was still acceptable, and common, everywhere you went. All of these adults would light up without a moment's hesitation, or thought about how others, including children, might be impacted or inconvenienced. On magazines and television, we got used to seeing the Marlboro Man, who, if memory serves correctly, died of lung cancer.
This is not ancient history that we are talking about here.
Now, of course, the thought of advertising for cigarettes is unthinkable, since it has been banned for many, many years at this point.
That is good, probably, and has likely helped with the reduction of rates of addiction to tobacco.
Sometimes, however, these crazes can get excessive.
One thing that I personally remember, and which seemed silly and which I mistakenly assumed was temporary, was the popularity of bottled water. I noticed it for the first time in high school, where all of a sudden, many girls were carrying around water bottles with them everywhere they went, perhaps as a measure of weight loss (speaking of crazes).
Now, bottled water is everywhere. What we got for free not long ago, we pay quite a bit of money for nowadays. I can still clearly remember when wanting a glass of water meant going to the tap and filling your glass to your heart's content. Now, you are expected to pay money for what we should still get for free. What always had been free up to that point has now been privatized, and the CEO of Nestle is arguing that access to water is not a right. The flip side of what he is arguing, of course, is that a big corporate monster like Nestle has every right to privatize water, and charge you for it, so that they can make a profit from a completely natural thing that they did not make.
Well, in any case, the point is that we always seem to find out that all of these different things that we previously seemed to accept as normal are, as things turn out, harmful to us. We have ravaged our planet and seem to be on the brink, and we have damaged our bodies with unhealthy lifestyles that have become routine and accepted, even promoted.
Of course, the more we learn, the more resistance there is. We have climate change deniers who promote continuing to ravage this planet, because that would be best for the short term economy, for quarterly profits for the foreseeable future. We have tobacco companies uniformly denying that their product causes cancer. We have gun advocates arguing that the appropriate solution to gun violence is to have more guns on the streets. We have healthcare corporations telling us that the best healthcare system in the world is the only one in the industrialized world that leave tens of millions of people uninsured, and countless millions more under-insured and unable to pay for adequate medical necessities, as the costs are simply too great.
What a world we live in!
Or, perhaps, is now a good time to repeat that age old catechism, "Only in America?"
It is not only in America where things are greatly screwed up, although it seems that these things right now are more pronounced in America, and only in America where such wrongs are routinely mistaken and promoted as right.
With all of this gloom and doom, it is probably best to maintain a strong sense of humor, to laugh a little, because the alternative is just too defeatist.
So, let's laugh.
Here was a humorous piece on the latest thing that suddenly is making news all over the place: the idea, or reality, that sitting as much as we do is detrimental to our health.
All of this is probably true, but already, there are purists who know better than everyone else, and they are promoting this new trend, suggesting that standing desks are the new, big thing, for a healthier workplace in every sense.
So be it. But here is a piece that makes fun of this self-righteousness behind these arguments, which do, on some level, promote healthier habits but, in another sense, also promote the same old same old, in every sense.
Click on the link below to take a look:
Switched to a Standing Desk, So Now You Should, Too by Tom O'Donnell, February 25, 2015:
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